Has the Trek EU Ever Directly Contradicted Canon? (Outside of Countdown)

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

Is there a particular type of adult movie that gets novelized more than others? I imagine it's usually the big spectacles with lots of special effects and scenery, for those screenshot inserts in the middle of the book.

Is it fair to say that most adult movies are based on books (whether novels or non-fiction or comics)?

 

[Greg Cox]

Is it fair to say that most adult movies are based on books (whether novels or non-fiction or comics)?

"Most" would be a stretch, but certainly books and plays and comics have been adapted to film for pretty much as long as there have been movies. But there are plenty of original screenplays as well.

Note that the Oscars has two separate categories, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Original Screenplay, and there's several contenders for both every year.

Incidentally, I think the 8-page photo inserts in the middle of adult novelizations are largely a thing of the past. I haven't seen one in forever.

Confession: When I first started editing movie novelizations back in the nineties, I originally included those photo sections because, well, that was the tradition; novelizations HAD to have an eight-page photo insert, right? But, honestly, they were a pain in the ass that added to the unit cost and wreaked havoc on my production schedules, so, without really consulting anybody, I stopped including them just to see if anyone would notice.

Never got any complaints. Didn't see any effect on sales. So I phased them out, except for kid's novelizations, specifically. Decades ago.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

I know some books even get both adult and kid novelizations, usually things like Godzilla and such that are, as I said before, very visual for those who aren't watching them cerebrally.

 

[Greg Cox]

I know some books even get both adult and kid novelizations, usually things like Godzilla and such that are, as I said before, very visual for those who aren't watching them cerebrally.

I did that with the MORTAL KOMBAT novelizations back in the day: we published simultaneous adult and juvenile novelizations for those movies.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

I did that with the MORTAL KOMBAT novelizations back in the day: we published simultaneous adult and juvenile novelizations for those movies.

I remember that also happened with Superman Returns.

 

[Shawnster]

And I suppose this counts as a contradiction of sorts, but DC Comics artists Tom Sutton and Ricardo Villagran continued to use the likeness of Kirstie Alley as Saavik in DC's monthly Star Trek comic after the role was recast with Robin Curtis for ST3 and 4. They drew Saavik to look like Curtis in the movie adaptations, but in the regular comic, she still looked like Kirstie Alley, as they just liked her features better.

In this instance, however, there are licensing rules and fees involved in depicting the likeness of a particular actor. This may have been a limiting factor

 

[Christopher]

In this instance, however, there are licensing rules and fees involved in depicting the likeness of a particular actor. This may have been a limiting factor

No, because Saavik did look like Curtis in the movie adaptations, as Jonny said. She was also drawn like Curtis in her later appearances in volume 2 of the comic. So DC clearly did have the license to Curtis's features. I think it's just that the artists of volume 1 wanted to keep their own character designs within the series consistent.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

In this instance, however, there are licensing rules and fees involved in depicting the likeness of a particular actor. This may have been a limiting factor

No, because Saavik did look like Curtis in the movie adaptations, as Jonny said. She was also drawn like Curtis in her later appearances in volume 2 of the comic. So DC clearly did have the license to Curtis's features. I think it's just that the artists of volume 1 wanted to keep their own character designs within the series consistent.

Yeah, AFAIK, DC Comics had likeness rights for every actor who was a regular in the Star Trek movies at that point. I can't imagine a comics company ever agreeing to not using the actor's likeness for one of the regular characters. "Well, you can do this Star Trek comic, but Mr. Chekov can't look like Walter Koenig."

I know that some of the TNG actors, like Patrick Stewart and LeVar Burton, had likeness approvals of any panel where they appeared solo, which caused the artists some consternation sometimes. And I know that some actors, like Roger Carmel and Ricardo Montalbán, didn't grant likeness rights, but it's pretty easy to either avoid using certain characters or to alter their appearance so they don't look like the actor so much. That's why Harry Mudd had a beard when he appeared in the second DC series, and why John Byrne had Mudd's mind implanted in a duplicate of Kirk's body in New Visions.

 

[Shawnster]

Thanks. I was thinking it was a possibility is all.

 

[drt]

I had noticed the juvenile novelizations for Disney properties about 10-15 years ago stopped short of the conclusion - presumably so you had to see the movie to learn how the story ended. I had bought some for my kids and found it so annoying I never bought any more, so I have no idea if that's still a thing or not.

Confession: When I first started editing movie novelizations back in the nineties, I originally included those photo sections because, well, that was the tradition; novelizations HAD to have an eight-page photo insert, right? But, honestly, they were a pain in the ass that added to the unit cost and wreaked havoc on my production schedules, so, without really consulting anybody, I stopped including them just to see if anyone would notice.

Never got any complaints. Didn't see any effect on sales. So I phased them out, except for kid's novelizations, specifically. Decades ago.

So it's your fault! lol

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

Those are the pages that frequently come loose and fall out of the book.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

I had noticed the juvenile novelizations for Disney properties about 10-15 years ago stopped short of the conclusion - presumably so you had to see the movie to learn how the story ended. I had bought some for my kids and found it so annoying I never bought any more, so I have no idea if that's still a thing or not.

Studios get very concerned about spoilers sometimes. I know that Max Allan Collins said that he had to write the novelization of the 1990 Dick Tracy movie without revealing who the Blank (the big mystery villain of the film) was at the very end.

 

[Greg Cox]

Studios get very concerned about spoilers sometimes. I know that Max Allan Collins said that he had to write the novelization of the 1990 Dick Tracy movie without revealing who the Blank (the big mystery villain of the film) was at the very end.

There were a few experiments with ending novelizations with a link to the final chapter, which would only go on-line AFTER the movie had opened. Thankfully, this "brilliant" innovation did not catch on.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

There were a few experiments with ending novelizations with a link to the final chapter, which would only going on-line AFTER the movie had opened. Thankfully, this "brilliant" innovation did not catch on.

Wow, I didn't know that.

 

[somebuddyX]

I always wanted a novelisation of a film based on a book.

 

[Christopher]

I always wanted a novelisation of a film based on a book.

That has happened from time to time. The movie Enemy Mine was based on a novella by Barry B. Longyear, but it got a novelization by David Gerrold (credited to Longyear and Gerrold, and difficult to research because online sites tend to confuse it with Longyear's anthology of the same name containing the original novella).

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

Yeah, if the finished film differs greatly enough from the source material (longer, an added subplot, a love story) you can't just read the original.

 

[Greg Cox]

I always wanted a novelisation of a film based on a book.

As in "Bram Stoker's Dracula" by Fred Saberhagen? Or "Mary Shelley's Frankenstein" by Leonore Fleischer. Trust me, this is a thing. I believe there were also novelizations of THE SPY WHO LOVED ME and MOONRAKER since the movies bore no resemblance to the originals by Ian Fleming.

My favorite example: Paul Monette's (excellent) novelization of Herzog's NOSFERATU THE VAMPYRE, which is a novelization of a remake of a silent movie based (illegally) on a book!

 

[Christopher]

I believe there were also novelizations of THE SPY WHO LOVED ME and MOONRAKER since the movies bore no resemblance to the originals by Ian Fleming.

I gather that quite a few of the Bond movies just took titles from the books and crafted unrelated stories around them.

 

[Racefuel]

I gather that quite a few of the Bond movies just took titles from the books and crafted unrelated stories around them.

They often take the title and character names. Example being "Moonraker". The movie has Hugo Drax as being a kind of..eugenitcs obsessed doomsday ..noahs ark kind of character that has the space shuttles and space station and shit.

The novel has him as a secret ex-Nazi who was designing a nuclear missile to protect England but in reality was going to nuke London.

So yeah..